


Study in Hands

by lusilly



Series: Earth-28 [9]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Art, Damian Wayne Feels, Family, Family Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 17:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10576317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lusilly/pseuds/lusilly
Summary: Bruce gets a call that Damian is at the hospital with an apparently serious injury to his hand. Damian, for months, refuses to tell him what happened. The answer is not at all what Bruce expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just some cute fluff I've been meaning to flesh out with Earth-28. Totally standalone, you don't need to know the series to read it - just know that Damian's on the Titans with Lian Harper, Iris West, and Chris Kent (among others). Check out the full series on my profile!
> 
> Title's actually from a Gautier poem.

            Bruce was lunching with Lucius Fox when his phone rang. He apologized, saw that it was Alfred calling on the non-emergency line, and then silenced the phone and put it away; Alfred would’ve scolded him for picking up during lunch with a friend and business partner in any case.

            Once Bruce bid Lucius farewell, fielding the not-so-subtle concerns about a certain Jason Todd’s involvement with Lucius’s daughter Tam as graciously as he could, Bruce opened his phone and saw a voicemail notification waiting for him. On his way back to his office, he listened to Alfred explain quite calmly that neither he nor Damian would be home for another hour or so, and so, assuming Bruce went home after lunch, if he could please keep himself from panicking because everything is perfectly under control, that would be best.

            Halfway up the elevator Bruce swiped his keycard to reroute it to the garage beneath the building, dialing Alfred back as he did so.

            “Master Bruce,” said Alfred, in lieu of a greeting. “I take it you received my message.”

            “Where are you and Damian?”

            “Oh, somewhere or other. A walk at the park, perhaps, or volunteering at the local community shelter.”

            “You wouldn’t have called to let me know if that hadn’t been the case.

            Damian’s voice as he addressed Alfred came through the receiver clearly. “Tell him I’m fine!” he called, sounding annoyed.

            This, naturally, tipped Alfred’s hand and told Bruce that Damian was or had been in some sort of danger. “What’s going on?” asked Bruce as he got into a sleek black car. His voice was hard.

            Alfred sighed. “I only called,” he began, “because I suspected you would notice the absence of some medical supplies at home, and I wanted to assure you that it was nothing to worry about.”

            “Medical supplies?” asked Bruce, his tone urgent. He exited the parking garage, waving to the attendant on his way out. “What happened?”

            “A mere accident, nothing to worry about. Remember that day when you were fourteen and you almost sliced your thumb off trying to chop onions?”

            This had indeed happened, but a fourteen-year-old Bruce had not had the precision and control in which a sixteen-year-old Damian had been trained since birth. Besides, Damian was more gifted in the kitchen than Bruce, routinely preparing meals with the vegetables he grew in his garden. Dubiously, Bruce asked: “He was cooking?”

            “Well – yes, thank you, Doctor – one moment, Bruce.” It sounded like Alfred took the phone from his ear and pressed it against his shoulder, but Bruce still could make out his muffled voice as he admonished Damian. “Would you be a little less stoic when the doctor comes in again? Any other boy your age would be in whining in pain right now, your own pride be damned.”

            As Alfred lifted the phone back to his ear, Bruce heard Damian protest, “It doesn’t hurt,” but Alfred seemed to ignore him.

            Before Alfred could speak, Bruce asked, “Are you at a _hospital?_ ”

            “Oh,” sighed Alfred. “Well, I suppose we are. I would’ve taken care of it at home, but I thought it would be useful for a specialist to take a look at it.”

            “A look at what?”

            “A teensy laceration across the palm of his right hand.”

            “And yet you thought a specialist was necessary.”

            “If there had been any nerve damage, I certainly didn’t want to make it worse. I am not a trained doctor, Master Bruce.”

            “More or less.”

            “While undoubtedly flattering,” Alfred replied, “that is untrue. I can’t solve every problem in this house, you know.”

            It seemed to Bruce that Alfred meant more than just tending to injuries, but he didn’t press it. Knowing that Damian was there listening to whatever Alfred said on the phone certainly explained some of the butler's cryptic words to Bruce, who took this as an invitation to come act the part of father with his son, without letting Damian in on such an intent. “Which hospital? Gotham Mercy?”

            “The good doctor has tended to Damian’s injuries, and we should be home within the hour. There is no need to meet us here.”

            “Brentwood General, then.”

            “Master Bruce-”

            “Spare me, Alfred. I’ll be there shortly.”

            It took him another twenty minutes, fighting traffic across Kane Bridge, and then another ten to park and talk to the kindly older woman at the front desk who recovered immediately and professionally from the look of shock on her face when he gave her his name. Damian was in room 219, which incidentally corresponded to Bruce’s date of birth. Though Bruce did not believe in signs or fate or the vague will of the universe, he found himself somehow mysteriously a little bit reassured by this.

            There was a long rectangular window in the door to room 219, though a curtain had been pulled across the bed for some privacy. This was standard practice for Bruce’s sons, to hide their presence lest they attract attention. In the moment, though, it annoyed him: he wanted to see his boy as soon as possible.

            When he entered the unlocked room, Alfred peeked around the curtain. The expression melted off his face when he saw Bruce, a firm blankness rising in its stead. “Ah, Master Bruce,” he said, a moment before Bruce joined passed around the curtain – it was a transparent means of warning Damian a split second ahead of time. Damian sat on the very edge of a hospital bed, holding his obviously bandaged right hand protectively in his left. As Bruce stepped beyond the curtain, Damian glared up at him defiantly, as if daring him to show concern.

            Bruce stooped to his son’s level. He moved forward, reached out to take the injured hand. “How is it?”

            “Fine,” said Damian stubbornly. But since the bandage covered the wound itself, he allowed his father this small touch.

            “Superficial damage the recurrent branch of the median nerve,” Alfred announced, stepping in for Damian to answer Bruce’s question. “This is good fortune, really. Some simple physiotherapy exercises and we shall be all healed up in a few weeks. He sees far worse on a usual night out on the job.”

            With his thumb, Bruce traced across Damian’s bandaged palm. Underneath his touch, he imagined he could feel the damaged nerve tensing, flinching away from his tenderness. His gaze flicked up to his son, who stubbornly refused to make eye contact. “But you weren’t on the job, were you?”

            “No,” replied Damian. He sounded angry, and since Bruce could not immediately tell why he just assumed it was because Damian hated being treated with care, like the child he was. “It was an accident. That’s all.”

            “Accident how?”

            “Just an _accident_ , why do you care about the details?”

            “Damian, please. Of course I care.”

            The door opened once more and they all fell silent; Bruce let go of Damian’s hand. “Alright,” came a voice Bruce didn’t recognize, and then a doctor wearing thick glasses appeared beyond the curtains, smiling pleasantly at Damian. Her eyebrows raised when she saw Bruce, a flash of coming face-to-face with celebrity in her eyes; then, professionally, she tamped that down. Addressing Damian, she gestured towards Bruce and said, “Oh, is this your father?” Sourly, Damian nodded, but she had already offered her hand to Bruce. “Nice to meet you, Mister Wayne,” she said.

            “You as well, Doctor,” he read the name on her coat, “Ghorbani.”

             The name sounded familiar, but Bruce couldn’t recall from where exactly, and he was certain he did not recognize the doctor. Once she had shaken Bruce’s hand, she went to Damian’s side and held out a hand grip, the kind used in physical therapy. “Okie-doke,” she said, “I want you to spend ten minutes on this every day until the stitches dissolve, then twenty minutes every day after that until you come in for another check-up.” She squeezed the thing, demonstrating how to use it. “Think you can do that?”

            “Yes,” answered Damian glumly, taking the thing when she offered it to him.

            Dr. Ghorbani took his hand and gestured towards his grip. “Just remember not to put too much pressure right here on the center of your palm. You might have to use it at a weird angle to avoid that, but it’ll be good for you. Leave your grip good as new. Sound good?”

            “Yes,” said Damian again. “Do I need to rest it, or can I continue with my regular activities?”

            “Be a little gentle with it,” said Dr. Ghorbani. “Are you right-handed?”

            “Left-handed.” Damian was perfectly ambidextrous, but it was easier to lie.

            “Perfect. Then it shouldn’t be a problem. Just be careful, OK?”

            “Done. Thank you.”

            “No problem. See you in a couple weeks, OK Damian?”

            “Yes.”

            She turned around and smiled at Alfred and Bruce. “Ibuprofen for the pain, but he was a trooper today so I think he’ll be alright. Mister Pennyworth,” she said, shaking Alfred’s hand, then taking Bruce’s once more. “Mister Wayne.”

            Then she swept away, on to another patient. Damian slipped off of the bed, heading towards the door. “Alfred,” said Bruce, as they followed Damian out. “Have we used that doctor before?”

            “No, I don’t believe so.”

            “Hn. She seemed familiar.”

            Damian piped up from before them as they traversed the hospital halls. “I know her sister,” he threw over his shoulder. “Niloufar. She goes to Colin’s school.”

            That was probably it. Bruce had thoroughly vetted all of Damian’s friends.

            Once they exited the hospital, Bruce moved forward slightly, from Alfred’s side to beside his son. He placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “You’ll come with me.”

            Damian tore his shoulder out of his father’s grip. “I’ll come where I damn well want.”

            There in the parking lot, Bruce and Damian both stopped, both a little bit shocked Damian had actually said that aloud. Quickly Alfred moved forward, seeking to soothe the situation before it got worse. “A good idea, I think,” he said reassuringly. “Damian, I do so hate your preferred radio station. Surely your father, a younger man than I, could tolerate it with more ease.”

            It was not real, a stupid fake reason for Damian to ride in the car with Bruce rather than Alfred. But Damian glanced in between his father and Alfred, sizing up a potential fight, then shrugged. “Can I drive?”

            “Do you have your permit?”

            “Father, I don’t need a _permit_ -”

            “It’s a company car, Damian. The answer is no.”

            Damian grumbled, “You _own_ the company,” but didn’t argue. Bruce told Alfred they would see him at home, and then he led Damian to the sleek black Bentley which he’d taken from the garage at the Tower. They both got into the car without saying a word. Bruce drove out of the parking lot in silence, and then Damian reached out to fiddle with the radio, landing on a station currently playing Kanye. Bruce surprised himself by being able to recognize the song: it was on one of Damian’s playlists, which he often blasted while he worked out. From his spot before the computer, Bruce could usually hear his son’s music from the distant bowels of the Cave.

            “What happened?” asked Bruce, slowing down to a few miles below the speed limit on the mostly empty road leading through the luxurious upper-class Brentwood neighborhood.

            “Nothing,” answered Damian shortly.

            Bruce took that, and thought it over for a minute. “Obviously something happened,” he continued, gesturing towards Damian’s injured hand. “I promise I won’t be angry.”

            As if offended, Damian shot back, “I didn’t think you’d be _angry_.”

            “Then why don’t you want to tell me?”

            “Because it’s not your business.”

            “You’re my son. Your wellbeing is absolutely my business.”

            “Well, then, it’s a good thing I’m fine. My hand will be back to normal in a matter of weeks.”

            This was frustrating, but serious conversations with Damian were wont to be so. Bruce tried another route: distraction. “You’re welcome to whatever you need for scar treatment. I know you don’t like injured hands.”

            Bruce could practically feel his son tense up in the passenger’s seat beside him. He looked out the window. Spring had come early this year, and it was beautiful outside. “It’s fine,” he murmured, evidence that Damian knew what Bruce was really talking about.

            The last time Damian seriously damaged his hands had been before his official diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder: while it was not uncommon for Bruce or the other boys to come home with bruises along their knuckles after the night’s work, it had somehow started to get to Damian on a level he had not been able to articulate. He had scratched through the skin up two fingers on his left hand, smearing blood across his face when he rubbed at his eye – both telltale signs of an episode about to hit Damian in full force. It had been a year since then and Damian had not had an incident in some time. But Bruce didn’t think it was entirely illogical to fear that damaged hands of this variety might trigger something in Damian’s brain, something that he could not control.

            “I worry,” said Bruce.

            “You shouldn’t,” said Damian. “It’s fine.”

            “Consider staying in tonight? I understand you have a microbiology project to finish for Alfred.”

            “Tt.” Damian was silent for a minute or two. “I’ll think about it.”

            In the end, Damian did not stay in. He left the Cave on his motorcycle minutes after Bruce did, though his status report delivered before he fell into bed just before the early gray light of dawn began to hit seemed to suggest that he had taken it slow.

            On the second night he busted the stitches in his hand. Bruce came back to the Cave early to find Damian without his cape, mask, boots, or gloves, sitting on the examination table trying not to curse as Alfred carefully restitched the wound. “That should teach you a lesson,” said Alfred wisely, his bespectacled eyes focused on the task at hand. “Be kind to your healing body, or else it will not be kind to you. It’ll scar now, you know.”

            Scathingly, Damian told him, “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

            “You know,” said Alfred, glancing up to meet the boy’s eye, “sometimes I question that, Damian.”

            As soon as the stitches were complete, Damian tugged his hand away and headed upstairs, scowling. Bruce was left alone with Alfred. He removed the cowl and the cape, setting them aside, then hovered anxiously for a moment. Patiently, Alfred waited for whatever question it was that Bruce was trying to ask.

            His voice slightly hushed, Bruce asked, “You think he’s alright?”

            “I do,” answered Alfred without hesitation. “He’s resentful, that’s all. Otherwise I do believe he’s managing quite well.”

            “Will you tell me what happened?”

            “No,” said Alfred, cleaning up the medical station. “He has asked me, quite civilly, to respect his privacy. I shall do so.”

            “He’s injured, I’m his father. I deserve to know.”

            With a shrug, Alfred replied, “Children injure themselves and keep it from their parents with wild and reckless abandon, Bruce. You of all people should know this.”

            It was a jab at Bruce’s own tendency, especially as a sulky teenager and younger man, to keep his own wounds secret from Alfred. Still, it had been a long time since then, and in the meantime Bruce had come to understand that all would have been much simpler had he just gone to Alfred in the first place.

            “Besides,” added Alfred, disinfecting the equipment and washing his hands, “you’re doing it again.”

            Distracted, Bruce looked up at Alfred. “Doing what?”

            Meeting Bruce’s eye with an expression that said quite clearly, _You know what_ , Alfred answered. “Leveraging paternal concern as if it amounts to the same thing as orders on the field. Conflating _Father_ and _Batman_. And know, Master Bruce, that if I have noticed, then he most certainly has.”

            This was a particular anxiety which Bruce had shared with Alfred after the emotionally exhausting three-day trip to a deserted island with Damian, wherein Damian had patently refused to give Bruce any meaningful insight to his relationship with the Titans (with, particularly, a certain Iris West), and also they’d come across a young assassin with whom Damian had naturally identified. Though Damian had not shared anything of this nature with Alfred, Bruce’s blind spot had always been found in the intersection of his own personal identity and that of the Batman, so he had asked Alfred to keep him in check, let him know when he went too far.

            Still. Knowing did not mean he could easily change it.

            Lowly – almost weakly – Bruce said, “It’s the only way I know how to be.”

            “Then you and Damian must learn another way together,” Alfred said simply, drying his hands. “Or else we will be stuck in this impasse of noncommunication forever.”

            “Don’t you think he should-”

            “No, no, Bruce,” said Alfred, shaking his head. “I do not enable. Speak _to_ him, not about him.”’

            “I’ve been trying.”

            “Then try differently,” Alfred told him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am an old man and I need my rest. I suggest you sleep as well. If you require food, there are sandwiches in the kitchen.” He headed towards the elevator, as the many stairs up to the Manor were hard on his arthritic knees.

            Given that they’d ended the night early, Bruce awoke before noon the next day. Damian still slept, and when Bruce went to check on him he was indeed fast asleep, earbuds neatly tucked into his ears. This gave Bruce some relief. There had been a month or so when Damian first started his medication when he had been too wired to sleep at all, which had resulted in another total meltdown. Rest meant healing. Bruce was grateful.

            Dick called, and Bruce talked to him for a while. He wanted to ask Dick to ask Damian what happened to his hand, but he also thought telling him about it might be a violation of Damian’s trust, so he refrained. He ended the call a few minutes before Damian entered the kitchen, barefoot, in his pajamas.

            He too had a phone at his ear. “You didn’t have to call me,” he was telling whomever it was that was on the other line. “I told you I can’t be there every weekend.”  
            Without acknowledging his father’s presence, Damian took a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with water from the fridge. “Yes,” he said, into the phone. “No, Lian is. Well, if she’s not there, then Milagro. Just ask her. It would be a good leadership experience for you Chris, you should do it.” He paused, then said, “No, don’t put her on the phone. It’s fine. You’ll be good at it.” He took a sip of water, still standing at the counter by the fridge. “Can’t you ask your father for this? He leads the entire Justice League, I only co-lead the eight of us every other weekend or – no, no, go ahead. You just have to do it, Chris, no time for hesitance. Confidence is key. Good luck.”

            He took his phone away from his ear and took out two slices of bread, sticking them in the toaster.

            “You should have some eggs,” said Bruce, from his spot at the kitchen table. “Protein.”

            Damian flashed a container of homemade baked beans at his father, which were in fact more protein-dense than eggs. “What happened to the gluten-free bread?” he asked, fiddling with the stud earring in his left ear: he had recently pierced his ear while away one weekend with the Titans, intending to thread a wire through the hole to anchor his communicator, keep it from falling off. Quickly he had realized this design wouldn’t work, but instead of taking the earring out and allowing the hole to heal and close on its own, he had kept it in as an aesthetic decoration.

            “Alfred froze it,” Bruce replied. “It goes bad quickly. You can thaw it as long as you make sure to eat it all within the week.”

            “It’s fine,” said Damian, turning back to the toaster. “I don’t like the taste anyway.”

            Damian had been the one to ask Alfred to buy gluten-free bread in the first place, but Bruce didn’t point this out. “Was that Christopher?”

            “They have a mission,” answered Damian, because it clearly had been, “and neither Lian nor I are there to lead, so they’re making do on their own.”

            “He’d be a good leader.”

            “No,” said Damian, as his toast popped up. “He can be slow to prioritize the right threats sometimes. I suspect it has to do with his autism mostly, but he lacks confidence in his abilities, which makes it worse.”

            Bruce’s eyebrows almost went up at how glibly Damian referred to his friend’s condition, but he hid his surprise immediately. Clark had mentioned it once or twice to Bruce, but always in the context that he suspected it had something to do with Chris’s alien nature, or the rapid ageing, or the effects of the Phantom Zone. It was a sore spot, a little bit; Bruce knew that when he was child some of the various doctors Alfred had made him go see had discussed the possibility that Bruce too had been somewhere along the spectrum, but it had never progressed past a childhood almost-diagnosis. He didn’t know why Clark or Damian speaking about it so easily made him feel the slightest bit self-conscious, but it did.

            Though Bruce had certainly listened to Clark when he spoke about his son’s condition, Bruce had rarely reciprocated with talk about Damian. He had mentioned it, particularly when explaining his resignation from the League, but if he talked about Damian to any of his colleagues, it was mostly Diana. There had always been something about her which made it very hard to lie to her, and which compelled Bruce often to say more than he should.

            “He’s welcome to visit Themyscira,” she had told Bruce once, “should he ever need a break from the pressure of the man’s world.”

            Slightly troubled by this wording, Bruce wondered if he had implied to her more than he’d meant to.

            “They need to learn to function independently, anyway,” Bruce finally replied to his son. “Though what stopped you from joining them this weekend?”

            Without turning around from fixing his breakfast, Damian held up his bandaged hand. “Wouldn’t be performing at my best, and I can’t expect them to pick up my slack.”

            Bruce wanted to point out that his absence meant they would be picking up even more slack than if he had shown up and merely been injured, but, not wanting to upset his son, he said nothing. Damian brought his plate, on which two toasted slices of bread were heaped with baked beans, to the kitchen table to down across from Bruce, opening something on his phone to read.

            “Where’s Alfred?” he asked.

            “Resting. I think he’s reading that book you recommended.”

            Damian made a face. “I didn’t recommend it, I only said I liked it. He’ll think it’s crass.”

            Bruce didn’t answer this. “Dick called. He’s well. He said you should come visit him in Chicago sometime.”

            Damian glanced up at his father, his mouth twisted into a reluctant grimace. “You didn’t tell him about my hand, did you?”

            “No,” answered Bruce. “I did not.”

            There was a long silence. Damian went back to his phone.

            “Damian,” said Bruce. “Can we talk about this?”

            Looking up from his phone, Damian watched his father warily. “What is there left to say?”

            With a nod towards Damian’s hand, Bruce asked, “How did you hurt yourself?”

            There was no hesitation in Damian’s voice. “It’s not your business.”

            “Why wouldn’t it be?”

            “Because you aren’t the one whose hand was gashed open.”

            “You don’t think it’s my business to know what has caused injury to my son.”

            “I think you should quit interrogating me about it.”

            Bruce was silent for a moment, watching his son. Damian went back to his phone.

            “Did you do it to yourself?” Bruce asked.

            “No,” answered Damian, with a disdainful look at his father. “I told you, it was an accident.”

            “Why were you handling dangerous tools out of uniform?”

            “It’s not as if I was juggling my steel, Father. It was a normal civilian accident.”

            “How?”

            Damian let out a frustrated sigh and got to his feet, taking his plate with him. “I’m going to the dining room,” he said curtly, “so that I may eat my breakfast in peace.”

            “You can’t keep these things from me,” Bruce said, raising his voice as Damian began to head out of the kitchen. “If your performance is going to be affected in the field-”

            “It won’t,” Damian called, without turning around.

            “You said only a moment ago that you aren’t with the Titans because-”

            At this, Damian turned around, still holding his plate in his hands. With intent to injure, he said, “You took Dick on as Robin when he was a harmless twelve-year-old. You, unlike my team of untrained teenagers, won’t have any trouble picking up my slack.”

            Bruce began, “If you were injured on patrol-”

            “But it _wasn’t_ on patrol.”

            “This only works,” Bruce said, gesturing between the two of them, “because of constant communication.”

            Damian let out a bark of laughter. “Now you’re just making fun.”

            “Damian, please,” said Bruce, without getting up. “I have to know what’s going on or else I’m not comfortable with you out on patrol with me.”

            “It’s a good thing I have my own route, then, so I won’t be there to trouble you.”

            “Just tell me,” said Bruce, his voice hard.

            “No,” snapped Damian. “I have a right to privacy.”

            “This is not privacy. This is secrecy.”

            Derisively, Damian retorted, “Because you’ve never kept any _secrets_ from me.”

            “What I do,” Bruce told his son, slowly, clearly, “I do for your sake. And if you cannot trust me, then I cannot trust you.”

            In the silence that ensued, Damian just shrugged. “Fine,” he said.

            “Fine,” echoed Bruce. “Then you’ll stay in tonight.”

            Damian’s expression did not soften. “If I take an entire week off, will that be satisfactory punishment?”

            Bruce didn’t say anything, though he wanted to. When he finally managed to collect his thoughts, Damian had already let out a contemptuous, “ _Tt_ ,” and left through the kitchen door, disappearing into the dining room.

            Later that day, at Alfred’s insistence, Bruce met Damian out back where he worked in the vegetable garden and ruefully told him Bruce would not prevent him from going on patrol that night. Damian refused to hear it, shrugging his father off and insisting he might as well stay in the Cave anyway and direct operations. He lacked experience out of the field, anyway.

            To Bruce’s surprise and a little bit of consternation, Damian performed excellently handling operations from the Cave. Barbara even agreed to allow him to take over some of Oracle’s duties, and the next morning she sent Bruce an evaluation report in which she spoke very highly of Damian’s abilities, noting in particular that his attitude had improved significantly in the past few years. When Bruce called her to get her personal thoughts – Bruce had become accustomed to hearing her voice, and in the absence of the rest of the family she had become a great friend to him – she said, “You should be proud, Bruce.”

            He was. He tried to let the hand thing go, to stop thinking about it, but he had difficulty doing so. Damian remained in the Cave at night for a week, and continued to perform well. When Alfred took his stitches out he resumed he regular duties, and was gone the next weekend with the Titans. At meals Bruce caught Damian tracing the scar tissue on his hand repeatedly but almost unconsciously, and every night before he put on his gloves he rubbed scar treatment cream on his palm while Bruce gave him a summary of directives and the status of active missions. It bothered Bruce, though he tried to ignore it.

            Nearly a month gone from Damian’s accident and his hand was back to normal apart from the fading scar. Still, it troubled Bruce, stuck like a burr in the back of his mind the same way, Bruce imagined, that it did for Damian.

            His college acceptances arrived by mail. Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Stanford. UCLA, too, which surprised Bruce: he hadn’t even known Damian applied to UCLA. Damian accepted Princeton’s offer, planning to enter university in the fall as a finance major. “Maybe I’ll pick up a visual arts minor or something,” he said, on the phone with Dick while leafing through the admissions materials. “Yeah.” Dick said something, and Damian gave a little laugh. “Maybe.”

            That night, Alfred and Damian made stuffed Portobello mushrooms for dinner with some of the fresh vegetables from Damian’s garden. “We need to stop by the food kitchen soon,” said Damian, eating his meal with gusto at the dinner table. “I’m harvesting the kale and the beetroot and the cucumbers this week and there’s far too much of it.”

            “We shall go tomorrow,” promised Alfred. “Damian, these mushrooms are exquisite.”

            “They didn’t even take the first time,” Damian said, nodding down at his food, inspecting the texture of the mushroom. “It’s too cold outside at nighttime, had to move them indoors.”

            Bruce glanced up. “Indoors where?”

            “The studio.”

            “In the greenhouse?”

            “Yes.”

            There was a pause.

            Then Damian continued, “Next time I’ll let them grow a little more before I harvest. They could’ve been a bit bigger, don’t you think?”

            “I think they are wonderful,” answered Alfred happily. “And delicious.”

            They ate in semi-silence.

            “How is your hand?” asked Bruce.

            “Fine,” answered Damian, though there was very little fight in his tone. He set down his fork and held his palm out, showing Bruce. “Scar’s fading.”

            “That’s good.”

            Damian pushed his hair out of his face and went back to his phone. In the past few months he had let his hair grow out ever so slightly, just slightly longer than it had ever been in the past. When it reached a certain length it began to curl, which had the general effect of making Damian look younger, more like the kid he was. After dinner Alfred began to take the dishes into the kitchen, but Bruce and Damian managed to convinced him to sit back down, and instead insisted on cleaning up while Alfred relaxed.

            Bruce washed the dishes and Damian dried them and put them away, mostly in silence. Bruce was rinsing a pan when Damian said, “Father.”

            He looked around. Damian was standing at the counter, his thumb slipping across a fork embossed with the Wayne family crest. Lowering it, he looked up at his father with a look which was partly resignation, but which didn’t appear entirely unhappy.

            “You’re really still thinking about my hand?” he asked.

            Bruce set down the pan. “Of course I am.”

            Damian watched his father dispassionately. “Why?”

            “Because I’m your father, Damian. What happens to you matters to me.”

            Damian looked at Bruce for a moment, cocked his head as if he didn’t fully understand. With a jolt, it occurred to Bruce that perhaps he didn’t: injuries in the field were evidence of a failure, a consequence of one’s own carelessness and an inaccurate threat assessment. Any wounds Damian had suffered as a younger child were at the mercy of his teachers, and Bruce suspected – through Damian did not speak of his time with his mother – that Talia had used injury always to teach her son, to show him that pain and hurt has value and use. Bruce was not entirely certain that either of Damian’s parents had ever really shown to him that they cared merely for the sake of caring.

            Once more Damian brushed a curl back, off of his forehead. “I’ll show you,” he said, “if you still want to know.”

            Bruce leaned against the sink. “I do.”

            “OK.” He nodded towards the French doors leading out to the back garden, and Bruce followed him out. It was dark outside already, just past dusk: fireflies crisscrossed lazily through the air, but Damian ignored them.

            They ostensibly were heading for Damian’s vegetable patch. “Were you gardening?” he asked.

            “No.” Damian crossed the lawn, towards the greenhouse with its glass black like oceanwater in the darkness. “I sculpt.”

            Bruce raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you cut your hand on a pottery wheel.”

            “Father, please, that’s _ceramics_. I said I sculpt.”

            Holding his tongue, doing his best to make sure Damian felt safe and unjudged, Bruce said, “Alright. What do you sculpt?”

            Damian opened the door to the dark greenhouse, then flicked a switch. Light flooded the place, reflecting white against the glass.

            “Marble,” he said.

            Bruce stood in the entrance to the ancient old greenhouse, a broken down, useless structure which Alfred and Damian had converted last summer into a studio. Naturally Bruce had always known his youngest son had artistic inclinations – he had seen his sketchbooks, and there’d been the watercolors a while ago – but sculpting marble was somehow not something Bruce had been remotely prepared for.

            A half dozen roughly-hewn figures stood frozen in the shadows, while another, half-formed into a bust, was positioned centrally. Piles of sandpaper, dust, and marble chips covered the floor. In the far corner, a tray of mushrooms grew.

            Beside Bruce, Damian brushed back his hair again. “I’ve been a little manic about it,” Damian admitted. “I only slipped and hurt my hand because I hadn’t been sleeping enough.”

            It was an admission of vulnerability, and it took Bruce slightly aback. “Ah,” he said. “Well.” He moved forward, slowly circling the rough bust. “These are very impressive, Damian.”

            “They’re just practice,” Damian said.

            “They’re very good.”

            Damian hesitated, hovering by the door. “Thanks,” he said.

            “Did Alfred buy you these supplies?”

            “Technically you did,” Damian replied, but he didn’t sound in the least bit ashamed. “I only forged your signature on the checks.”

            Though rationally Bruce knew he was supposed to be upset with his son for that, he couldn’t bring himself out of the strange sense of awe he felt, being in this room. There was a short silence as Bruce moved between the chunks of marble, inspecting them from all sides. He glanced back at Damian and asked, “Have you ever thought about a show?”

            “Show?” Damian echoed his father as if he did not understand, certain he had misheard. “Not…particularly.” He paused, then added, “They’re not very good,” legitimately, as if to inform his poor uncultured father on the simple fact of the matter.

            But Bruce had made up his mind. “They’re exquisite,” he said with certainty. “All your artwork has been collecting dust, Damian. Even if you choose not to display these,” he gestured at the statues, “you should have a showing of some sort. Frankly I’m disappointed I never thought of it earlier.”

            For a long moment, Damian didn’t say anything. Then Bruce peeked out from behind a statue to see his son standing still at the threshold, watching Bruce with a kind of deeply touched disbelief.

            He recovered quickly. “That’s idiotic,” he said, his expression snapping back to normal. “A private gallery showing is absurd. I’ve never even displayed any of my pieces before.”

            Bruce never said _private gallery_ , but he wasn’t about to correct his son. “That’s not true,” he pointed out. “You did that art class at the Neon Knights Center a few months ago, and they displayed your work there once it was over.”

            “That was for charity,” Damian pointed out. “Tim’s PR team requested that I do it.”

            “This can be for charity too,” Bruce insists, crossing the studio back to his son. “We can offer to sell the pieces you wouldn’t mind parting with, then donate the proceeds to charity.”

            Shaking his head, Damian leaned against the doorframe. “No one will buy anything.”

            “Then we make the donation ourselves.”

            “That’s not-”

            Bruce interrupts. “Damian,” he said, earnestly. “Please.”

            After an extended pause, wherein Damian watched his father suspiciously, as if waiting for the punchline – finally, Damian gave a long theatrical sigh, and shrugged. “Fine,” he said, and Bruce got the impression he was very pleased to be convinced. “But I’ll have to take another look at my work. Hardly anything is worth showing, in any case.”

            He turned and headed back into the house. Behind him, Bruce followed, making his way through the grass and the flowers back into the Manor, a small smile on his face.

            The next day – Damian was technically on summer vacation, which usually made no impact on his studies, but as the days led up to his start at Princeton, Alfred had decided it prudent to give him a break – was spent mostly in the big living room with the French doors swung wide open. By the time Bruce awoke and made it down to slurp down coffee and his usual breakfast, Damian had already stuffed the room with almost every completed artwork of his he could scrounge up. It was staggering, really, the breadth of art that Damian had dabbled in; Bruce and Alfred sat dutifully on the sofa as Damian presented piece after piece, charcoal, watercolors, oil paintings, inked figure studies – a fully-inked short story comic, which Damian clarified he would not sell, until Alfred suggested they have it printed so that they may sell copies, to which Damian agreed with poorly disguised glee, delighted at the idea.

            Often Damian stopped, describing and observing a certain piece with a critical look in his eye. When he began to express his doubts about whether or not it deserved a place in the gallery showing, Bruce or Alfred would shake their head and one of them would say, “No, no, it’s too good; you have to include it.”

             Once the comic was printed, the gallery was booked, the catering ordered, and the event publicized, it came too quickly. Damian wore a nice suit, black, to contrast against his father’s pinstripe gray. He dragged his feet in those last few minutes, reluctantly getting into the car, then staying silent for the ride into the city. As they approached, he said snappily, “You know, this art space could’ve just as easily been used to showcase some of the more under-recognized art of real Gothamites, that is, you know, people who don’t have rich white old fathers to bankroll their own personal indulgences-”

            But given the right conditions, Damian loved being the center of attention, and as soon as guests started arriving he seemed to find his place. Half an hour in Dick showed up, bunching his arms around Damian in a tight hug which Damian only half-pretended to hate – he had flown in from Chicago specifically for this, while Bruce and Alfred kept it a secret. Tim was there, took a few pictures with Damian and with Bruce, provided a blurb for the press. At his side was Tam Fox, who was the one to actually coordinate the mini press conference and remind Tim that his PR team wanted the photos. Damian resented Tim’s presence, but he didn’t hate Tam; she was particularly taken by his oil paintings, and deeply impressed by the single completed marble sculpture he had decided to show.

            Colin showed up in jeans and a button-up shirt, and Damian gave him a copy of the comic, free of charge. Though Cass was out of the country on business, as she was wont to be, both Stephanie and Barbara showed up together. “Damn, Li’l D, this is good,” said Steph. “Way better than that macaroni portrait you gave me way back when.”

            A few years ago, Damian had been coerced into attending a week-long summer camp where Stephanie worked as a camp counselor. They had indeed created macaroni portraits, and the one Damian had made of Stephanie still hung in her room.

            An anonymous patron bought six paintings and the sculpture for nearly twenty thousand dollars. Tam Fox signed for whoever it was. The rest of the purchases and donations amounted to twice that, and when they gave the check to the local community center in Gotham’s poorest neighborhood, Bruce matched the donation in full.

            On the drive home from the ceremony, Damian would say, “You know, throwing money at every little urban ill doesn’t necessarily amount to making a positive, sustainable change-” and Bruce had not interrupted his son. If he had, he might have told Damian that he was proud.

           


End file.
